Woah, Battering Rams!

[: D]

I dunno if other units are as good or better, but I've experienced the Jaguar, Cho No Ku, Impi and the Ram, and I have to say the Ram is just OP to heck in the early game.

I mean, I just took out a CITY with ONE Ram. In ONE turn. No more of that 8-9 units to take a city, just bring a ram n get wrecking.

[ajhartman65]

Works like a charm if you get your starting warrior upgraded to a ram and then find you closest neighbor with his pants down (troops out exploring). Problem is once you get other civs building actual armies your rams will die very fast without support to get them up to the city gates. Also sucks that when you upgrade a ram you lose the wonderful power to crush a city and most promotions are invalidated. With this in mind the Assyrian siege tower comes in as a more useful unit for a longer time because of the bonus it gives other units when it is next to an enemy city (and can also take a city out solo in early game, just takes a little longer to get one).

[Damsteri]

Battering Rams are great. A single Ram can take city even alone in ancient erea, if... city has no units protecting it and city is not located on the hill. You need to get just two hits trough.

Once I got blitzing start with Huns. I had three cities at turn 14. First, I got promotion to Battering Ram for my Starting warrior ot turn 2, then I met City State with natural wonder Mt. Kailash next to it. I attacked and result was that I had two cities at turn 5. Then I healed and continued to scout with my Battering Ram (well, not quite efficient, but I lacked units to do it). I met Byzantium and got lucky. I was playing an Immortal level game, so AI starts with three warriors, way too much for a single Battering Ram. But... I had built a scout, and my scout saw that all those three warriors were fighting barbarians, about 3-4 turns away from their capital Constantinople. Constantinople was on flatland, there was no units defending it... so I attacked and killed the first AI civilization at turn 14. I had three cities, killed a CS and an AI civ at turn 14 and I didn't had met anybode else, so no warmonger penalties. I have sometimes taken the whole continent (4-6 civs) by turn 60 (standard speed), if I have been lucky with ruins (promos to two warriors, wheel and bronze work techs)

Ram's has their weaknesses, they can't attack other units and need to be next to a city to be able to attack. Best way to defend a city earily is fortify Warriors/Spearmans next to your own city. AI can't do that, they will loose. Rams are also easily destroyed by melee units.

Hun's Horse Archer is much better unit all-around. They start with free Accuracy promo and once you get the barracks built you can them produced with Accuracy II. Then you have to kill some barbs to get Accuracy III and when you bring them to the real war they can easily grab Logistics. Logistics allows them to move-shoot-move, being alomst as efficient than Keshiks. They don't upgrade well (to the Knights), so you need to use them early, but they are very good killing everything and protect those fragile Rams.

Huns don't have spearmen, because Battering Ram replaceses the Spearman unit. So, they have no anti-mounted defences and are fragile against Horsemen, but Composite Bowmen are effective too.. because they just are effective against everything. Time is Huns' worst enemy, because their units become obsolete quite fast.

8-9 units to take a city? I consider that a medium size army already. AI needs to about 20 units to even attack a city properly, but a humen player can conquer cities with small but effective armies. Just 4-6 units are normally needed: 1-2 melee, 2-4 ranged and 1-2 siege.

[Random Reference #98]

Rams are amazing early game but unfortunately they become obsolete very fast. Something like the chokonu or longbow is better long term because they keep their special promotion when upgraded and are more versatile in general.
The chokonu especially is awesome because it earns experience twice as fast and it's not hard to get a few with +1 range and logistics so they can attack three times making for extremely deadly bazookas.

[ajhartman65]

Originally posted by Random Reference #98:

Rams are amazing early game but unfortunately they become obsolete very fast. Something like the chokonu or longbow is better long term because they keep their special promotion when upgraded and are more versatile in general.
The chokonu especially is awesome because it earns experience twice as fast and it's not hard to get a few with +1 range and logistics so they can attack three times making for extremely deadly bazookas.

Ummmm....chokonu basically starts with logistics, that's why they get 2 attacks. I've never been able to get a unit with only 2 moves to attack 3 times, so you must be hallucinating if you've gotten a chokonu to attack 3 times. If you have actually gotten this to happen please tell me how. Similar thing with longbows, you can't add the +1 range to them with promotions.

[Damsteri]

Three attack Chu-ko-nus are possible, but hard to get. Problem is that they have 2 movement points and logisticks gives third attact, which can't be used.

You need to get scout promoted to Scouting I trough III, to get +1 movement. Then you need to get that same scout upgraded to archer from ruins and upgraded the archer to Chu-ko-nu and get logistics. You need first 3 promos to scout, then ruins upgrade, then 4 promos to archer/c.bowman/chokonu. Very hard without any mods which change scout upgrade path or promotions.

Chu-ko-nu's promotion is dfferent than Logistics, so they can get 3 attacks because their own promotion is not logistics. Longobws start with the range promotion, so they can't get the same promotion again and have 4 range.

[Random Reference #98]

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

Originally posted by Random Reference #98:

Rams are amazing early game but unfortunately they become obsolete very fast. Something like the chokonu or longbow is better long term because they keep their special promotion when upgraded and are more versatile in general.
The chokonu especially is awesome because it earns experience twice as fast and it's not hard to get a few with +1 range and logistics so they can attack three times making for extremely deadly bazookas.

Ummmm....chokonu basically starts with logistics, that's why they get 2 attacks. I've never been able to get a unit with only 2 moves to attack 3 times, so you must be hallucinating if you've gotten a chokonu to attack 3 times. If you have actually gotten this to happen please tell me how. Similar thing with longbows, you can't add the +1 range to them with promotions.

Yeah my bad, I'm playing my first game as China right now. I got one with logistics but didn't get the chance to actually try it out. Doesn't make much sense for them to be able to earn that when it doesn't stack with with their UA because of movement limit.
Longbows are different though since the promotion they start with is the same one that can be earned by regular bows whereas the chokonu promotion is unique to them even though it's the same as logistics.

[CHE]

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

Works like a charm if you get your starting warrior upgraded to a ram and then find you closest neighbor with his pants down (troops out exploring). Problem is once you get other civs building actual armies your rams will die very fast without support to get them up to the city gates. Also sucks that when you upgrade a ram you lose the wonderful power to crush a city and most promotions are invalidated. With this in mind the Assyrian siege tower comes in as a more useful unit for a longer time because of the bonus it gives other units when it is next to an enemy city (and can also take a city out solo in early game, just takes a little longer to get one).

A battering ram when he has his pants down? That's an interesting metaphor! :P

[ajhartman65]

Originally posted by CHE:

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

Works like a charm if you get your starting warrior upgraded to a ram and then find you closest neighbor with his pants down (troops out exploring). Problem is once you get other civs building actual armies your rams will die very fast without support to get them up to the city gates. Also sucks that when you upgrade a ram you lose the wonderful power to crush a city and most promotions are invalidated. With this in mind the Assyrian siege tower comes in as a more useful unit for a longer time because of the bonus it gives other units when it is next to an enemy city (and can also take a city out solo in early game, just takes a little longer to get one).

A battering ram when he has his pants down? That's an interesting metaphor! :P

It is Saturday night, whatever works for you, I won't judge.

[: D]

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

Originally posted by CHE:

A battering ram when he has his pants down? That's an interesting metaphor! :P

It is Saturday night, whatever works for you, I won't judge.

It really depends on how BIG the Ram is. Bigger's better, yeah? lol

[Holl]

Yeah, the Battering Ram is a fun time for all. Except those on the rammy end.

[Fishy]

ok